


Lifting the Veil

by AliuIce0814



Category: Now You See Me (2013)
Genre: F/M, alma might have special powers, and Dylan knows all about it, dylan thinks atlas is a little shit, life is better in new orleans, magic is a real thing, or maybe dylan just thinks that because he's in loooooooooove, spoilers for the movie, these two were the best thing about this movie and no one can convince me otherwise, tribute to the scenery, vague references to past events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 06:43:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliuIce0814/pseuds/AliuIce0814
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'll always have New Orleans, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifting the Veil

**Author's Note:**

> I've seen this film twice and still can't get over how awesome it is. Dylan/Alma is now my OTP. No regrets.
> 
> Hopefully this is all right. I wrote it directly after I got my wisdom teeth out. The anesthesia messed me up. Point out any and all substantive errors, and I'll fix them. Concrit is always welcome.
> 
> I still can't get over the scenery in New Orleans.

            Alma woke in the apartment in New Orleans. She sat up quickly, cotton sheets sliding off her legs. The city’s sticky heat quickly enveloped her.

            She knew it had to be a dream.

            The apartment didn’t look much different from Alma’s memory of it, though all of the gadgets brought in by the FBI were missing. Alma knew why immediately. The Horsemen were gone. Well—not gone, she thought with a little smirk. Just learning. With Dylan, of all people, impossible Dylan who had denied again and again the possibility of magic. But of course, that was the trick. The closer you looked, the less you saw.

            Alma walked to the bookshelves. She ran her fingers over dusty leather tomes, over golden titles in English and French. When she finally found the book she had been looking for, she slid it off the shelf and settled into an armchair to read.

            _Lionel Shrike, a twentieth-century magician from New York, is usually associated with his fatal attempt at a comeback from obscurity rather than any magical talent. However, Shrike may have known more about the truth about magic than he ever let on…_

            Soon, Alma was lost in her reading. The only sound other than her own breathing was the sound of the whirring fans outside and of the occasional cicada chirring. It was summer in New Orleans now, oppressively hot and strangely quiet. Alma let herself get lost in the book’s theories about Lionel Shrike as the leader of the Eye. She wondered how accurate the book's postulations were. Obviously Dylan was involved with the Eye now, but…

            Alma wished the book could tell her little things, things Dylan still couldn’t or wouldn’t say, like what kind of father Lionel Shrike had been. He must have been a good one, Alma thought. Maybe he'd had Dylan’s smile, the one she spent hours coaxing out of him. Maybe he'd had Dylan's patience with teaching people new tricks. Lionel Shrike must have been a great father for Dylan to go to such lengths to avenge him.

            On the other side of the open French doors, a can clicked open. Alma let the book slide from her hands. As it hit the floor, she padded to the door, reaching for a gun that wasn’t there. Even in her dreams, she was wary. It was the downfall of working with her life constantly in danger.

            Dylan was outside. Alma’s shoulders slumped in relief. Of course Dylan was there, leaning against the railing and drinking a can of cheap American beer. He smiled when he saw Alma. “Hey.”

            “Hey, yourself.” Alma wrapped her arms around Dylan’s shoulders and kissed his neck. His stubble scratched her cheek. He felt real enough, sounded real enough. Alma started to wonder if she were dreaming after all. Probably not. It wasn’t the first time that she’d found Dylan in unexpected places. It was just the first time she’d found him, as himself, in her dreams. “With all this magic at your disposal, you still choose to drink that?”

            Dylan chuckled. He set the beer on the railing. “It’s an acquired taste, I guess.”

            “Your father drank it?”

            Dylan leaned back, his dark eyes wide and startled. Gently, he brushed his thumb over Alma’s cheek. Alma leaned into the touch. It would have been impossible to resist. When Dylan spoke, he sounded quiet, considering. “You know, sometimes I wonder if you don’t have some kind of intuition.”

            Alma’s eyes widened. “You mean like your magic?”

            Dylan shrugged. “More like Merritt’s, actually. But yes.”

            “The mentalist? You are saying I am like the mentalist?” Alma stood up straighter. She narrowed her eyes at Dylan. Sometimes, it was so difficult to tell if he was being serious. “Honestly?”

            “You’ve got a keen perception. That’s why you do so well in Interpol.”

            Alma smiled at the pride in Dylan’s voice. He could still be a condescending, short-tempered ass when he wanted to be. He had been when he’d taken her to Milan in April. She’d been tired after a long week of cases with dead ends, and he’d been at the end of his rope—something about Atlas being an egotistical perfectionist, or as Dylan had put it, “a goddamn little shit.” Dylan had shouted and thrown a glass. Alma had pinned his arms behind his back.

            It hadn’t ended well, that night in Milan.

            But Dylan apologized, afterward, not with flowers or chocolates but with a deck of cards. He’d spent the next day sneaking in and out of Alma’s office. During her breaks, or whenever her supervisors weren’t watching, he taught her to shuffle, to deal, to slip a card up her sleeve. It was the littlest kind of magic, child’s play, but it fascinated Alma. Dylan always seemed willing to fascinate her.

           He never showed her everything. He knew that she liked the illusion of magic more than she wanted to understand the tricks behind it. But at Alma’s request, Dylan would lift the veil between the tangible world and whatever lay beyond, for just a moment. The moment of sight always left Alma feeling lighter, as if her feet barely touched the ground when she walked.

            Dylan cared for Alma, in his mysterious way. But he always did it when she was awake. Tonight seemed to be different.

            “So are we really here? I mean, I know where we are.” Alma walked along the veranda to the corner. She could see the Savoy from there. The last time she’d stood there, talking to Dylan about the beauty in the unknown, Mardi Gras had been in full swing. Now, the streets were silent, empty. “New Orleans. Our apartment. But no one else is here. So. Am I dreaming?”

            “Maybe I kicked everyone else out of New Orleans so you and I could spend some time alone, together.”

            “You wouldn’t!” Alma thought she heard amusement in Dylan’s voice, but she had to be certain. Sure enough, when she turned, he smirked, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “You didn’t. So what did you do?”

            Dylan shrugged. “When we were in Glastonbury, at the Tor. Back in…April, right? You remember our conversation?”

            “What, about the hippies and how you were one of them?” When Alma laughed, so did Dylan. “No, I remember. About the mind, yeah, and hypnotism?”

            “And then I tried to hypnotize you.”

            “Did hypnotize me. I could feel it.” Alma shivered. “I still say you deserved that punch. Teasing about stealing important information from my mind! So what did you really do?”

            Dylan shrugged again. “A little trick, like what Merritt might do. Nothing special. I just planted a trigger on you so that if you ever thought of me right as you fell asleep…” Dylan shoved his hands in his pockets. “Your dreams would take you to see me in the place that reminds you of me the most.” Alma stared at Dylan. He shuffled his feet. “I can always remove the—”

            “You romantic. You absolute romantic!” Alma laughed, shoving at Dylan’s chest. “You are the most sentimental man I have ever met.”

             Dylan wrinkled his nose. “No, no, no. Not a romantic, come on, Alma—”

            “You are! You are a complete romantic.” Alma shoved Dylan again. “You are sentimental about everything. First the lock on the bridge in Paris, and now this.”

            “No, no—all right, fine. But it’s your fault.”

            Alma rolled her eyes. “Oh, it is? Everything’s my fault.”

            “Not everything. Just this.” Dylan took his hands out of his pockets and twined his fingers with Alma’s. His hands were large and warm. She had watched him perform magic with those hands, and she’d seen those hands reach into a burning car to rescue a dying man. And now those hands held hers, maybe not all the time, but often, often enough.

            Alma tilted her head up to kiss Dylan. She always felt like laughing when they kissed: for a man who had spent over half his life doing dangerous, stupid things for the sake of love, he was an incredibly tentative kisser. As if he were afraid of breaking her. She would have to break him of that habit someday soon.

            “I think you were always sentimental,” Alma whispered in Dylan’s ear. ‘Why else would you go to such lengths for your father?”

            Dylan looked down at their twined hands, half-smiling. “I think you’re clairvoyant.”

            “Well, we can always test that today, can’t we?” Alma kissed Dylan’s cheek. “Come on. We have maybe seven hours until my alarm wakes me from this dream. How about you and I explore?”

            “Explore what?” Dylan looked up at Alma, his smile broader.

            “Everything.”

            Dylan snapped once. Slowly, the city came to life, vendors sweeping the streets and families walking down the sidewalks. “I think I’d like that.”

            When he dipped his head to kiss Alma again, he wasn’t tentative at all.


End file.
